Last Updated on January 25, 2025 by pg@petergamma.org
According to our own personal experience, Sogyal Rinpoche was an excellent speaker. And his talks sometimes where very long. The following talk is around two hours:
In one of his talks Sogyal Rinpoche made a joke about this topic. Was it Sogyal Rinpoche who experienced this himself? We do not remember. But Sogyal Rinpoche mentioned a talk of a speaker who spoke and spoke and spoke. And finally there was only one listener left in the room. And then the speaker asked the listener:
Who are you?
And the listener answered:
I am the next speaker.
But next to making good jokes, Sogyal Rinpoche was also controversial:
He has been accused of sexual and physical assault and abuse, as well as misusing charitable funds, with allegations stretching back to the 1970s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogyal_Rinpoche
Rigpa has undertaken a series of reforms and changes throughout the organization, following the retirement of its founder Sogyal Rinpoche in August 2017, and serious allegations and complaints against him and Rigpa.
https://www.rigpa.org/moving-forward
But what happened fit s very well to the discussion at the University of Berne about spiritual teachers which was critical: